Destruction

I have just been sat watching the news on tv. It's truly heartbreaking. These heavy rains have destroyed sooo much. Roads, bridges, houses, businesses, farm land etc. The photos are horrific. The country is on Green alert now and the next heavy rains (Tropical storm Matthew) are due in the next few hours. Apparently, hundreds of schools across the country have collapsed and have had to be evacuated. Craziness. It truly and honestly makes me very sad to watch all this around me. Even part of the main football stadium in the capital city has collapsed! We are about to experience the heaviest rains so far....if you've seen the photos of Lorena's house and the neighbourhood in these floods this does not bode well. This rain really does stress me out - even though my house is dry...so far....apart from my laundry room which regularly floods!! I think it's the destruction it's causing that stresses me out. Horrible. The news is saying that with all this rain, it is causing more distasterous effects than Hurricane Mitch did in 1998. Not good. They (hurricane centre in USA) are predicting 18 tropical cyclones of which 10 will be hurricanes. Whether they all hit Honduras is unknown. Great. Glad I bought wellies.

On stand by...

Adelson (Lorena and Jaime's brother so part of my family!) and Velkis are about to have their 2nd child - any hour now!! I am on stand by to drive them to the hospital at any hour, day or night!! Obviously, when someone goes into labour here, the whole family goes to wait in the hospital. 2 births in 2 months for me!

Rains

We have been suffering more and more with flash flooding. The rains have been abnormally heavy. My neighbourhood floods more than most!! The roads are literally flowing rivers 15 mins after the rains start. An hour after it stops and it all disappears!! I am thankful for the blessing of my car. Without 4x4 the roads are impassable and I would never leave my house!

Lorena's house breaks my heart. Her house is a v poor house. The roof leaks somewhat and the walls don't actually meet the tin roof - you can watch mice running along the top of it, and it means there are always mosquitoes in the house - hence the dengue that her brother had. The worst is that the path to her house slopes down from the road and so with this heavy rain the water pours down. Her front path, garden, entrance turns into a river/lake. When she told me how deep it was I wan't convinced so with my wellies (rain boots) on and rain coat on, I braved it to her house in the torrential rain. The water was so deep it went over the top of my boots. I was amazed. Yet immensely saddened - this is her house and happens every day. It doesn't take long to clear after the rains, but it's shocking. They want to rent a house during these winter months, their house is just not healthy and doesn't work! Or they want to bbuild the walls up and put a new roof on. But it costs money that they don't have. Plus..they don't want to leave me alone in this neighbourhood bless them. It is so sad to see their house..it's their home - my 2nd home!!

Lorena rescuing the cat as she tried to get into her house!

The rain pouring from the road into her house!

Click here for photos of my neighbourhood

I finally had enough of the mud bath in front of my house. The dogs were continually digging holes, that then filled with water and became a mud splashing bath for them..thus caking everywhere with mud. I also couldn't keep up with all the weeds and it just looked a mess. So I gave in and bought gravel. It now looks really good - and will prevent so much mud (and dust in the dry season). It's expensive stuff but well worth it!!

September!

It's been a while since this has been updated - and so much has happened! September is a crazy month in Honduras. The country celebrates it's Independence from Spain on 15th Sept and so the whole month is a celebration. On the first of September, the children all lined up outside as we raised the National Flag, sang the anthem, prayed the National Prayer! Then, at the end of the day we had to go outside and sing the National Anthem again as the flag is taken down!! A good start to the month....except this then happens every day in September, every morning we line up outside by the flag poles and sing the Anthem, say the prayer and then every afternoon we go back outside and do it all again!! Makes for a long month!!

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On the 10th Sept we had Dia del niño - Day of the Child. We kept it simple at school this year and just had a party for the school children, and the children from the orphan homes, in school. The usual games, pinatas, food etc.

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Then, the major event of the month - the Independence Day Parades! This was our first official pre-school parade and as every school we went a bit to town with it! It took us a long time to arrange and to make (and get made) costumes, banners etc. But it was worth it and they did great.

Click here for more photos

What made it better was that we got the rest of the week off as a celebration - at times I really do love this country!!! So on the 15th I headed to town with friends to watch the high schools parade - always amazing! They have the big marching bands - latino style - which I love! Great community atmosphere in town. Then back to lunch at Lorena's for a big family meal. Then in the afternoon I went to watch the guys play volleyball - in the rain, but gave me something to do! The evening brought with it a concert in town but it wa high jacked by the Resistencia (the group opposed to the government, Mel Zalaya fans!) and so we clearly didn't hang around for that! All in all it was a great day.

The week was relaxing and a well needed break. I didn't get to go away anywhere, but this was a good thing as David (Lorena and Jaime's younger brother) became v ill with Rotavirus and Dengue and so I spent the week driving him to hospital, then when he was admitted visiting him with J and L. Dengue is spreading really quickly here. I have 3 friends who all have it - something I never wish to have.

Plodding on

Things have just been plodding on here really. The rains are phenominal as ever - the road by my house flooded so badly smaller cars couldn't pass. I drove down it and as I did a small 'normal' car virtually floated past me as the water was over the level of his tyres! He made it though. Friends of mine get 'streams' of water flowing through their houses as everything is on a hill. My laundry room/store room continues to flood, I now have mushrooms growing on the floor and opening my back door is nearly impossible as the wood has swollen so much. Every Honduran is confused as noone has seen it like this in Siguatepeque - especially not before November - the heavy rain season!! My landlord is sending someone to fix my roof this week so hopefully I won't be sweeping water out every time it rains!!

I have finally found an Internet provider that can install broadband into my house. They were meant to come on Friday, but because of the rain...never made it. I am hoping they will come tomorrow so I will be able to Skype again etc.

Friday night I got a phone call to go and visit a friend in hospital. So Lorena, Jaime and I got in my car and went over to the hospital. Libi lives in Santa Barbara and is a very close friend of Fredi and Belquis. Her family were in a car crash just over a year ago and her husband and son were killled and she was left seriously ill - and has had to wear/use a collostomy bag. She was finally in hospital to have her intestines 'fixed' so she wouldn't need the bags anymore. I'm not sure why Fredi called us really, she was still in the operating theatre and they had been waiting for 4 hours and I think were just bored and wanted company!! So we sat and chatted in the hospital until we knew it had been successful and she was in intensive care - then went home. Slightly random, but I'm glad she is doing well. She is such a sweet girl.

Yesterday I was meant to go with the Youth Group up to 2 communities in the mountains to build desks for some schools and some cabin type/shelter things for the schools. I decided that as much as it would have been fun, I needed a quieter day at home. So, I pottered around here in the morning and then in the afternoon Lorena and I took little Benjamin into town and pottered around getting things done there. In the evening I got bored so went to her house, only her mum was there and so chatted to her. She has the craziest, old fashioned ideas, but was good fun and nice to relax and laugh.

Today - I've done absolutely nothing! I may live to regret it, but for now it's been v pleasant!

Flooding

This is the view from the front windscreen of my car today as I was driving down the road from Providence! The road had become a river after just 2 hours of tropical rain!! It was actually quite deep as well.

Honduras is really suffering at the moment from severe rain and severe flooding. In Sigua alone rivers are bursting and flooding houses and roads. As I drove into town today I passed cars parked along by the bridge watching the raging torrent of water rising steadily, flooding the lower level houses built on the rivers edge. It was an impressive sight to see -- yet the destruction is devastating. The river by my house luckily has high river banks, thankfully.

Pray for Tegucigalpa in particular. The flooding is at it's worst and has destroyed countless homes, roads and businesses. The rain is relentless.

Praise God for my wellies and 4x4 car at the moment!! There are tropical storms and hurricanes out in the Caribbean - but none near Honduras. Yet we still suffer their effects.
As I write this the rain has started again. Lovely to be tucked up in bed when it is like this outside, but not when you think of the destruction it is causing...and not when you have to get up early for work and it's still dark and raining. A killer!!

Yay...Football!!

Finally...football on Sunday again. This was just a friendly game and it wa so wonderful to be back on the cancha watching football with my friends again. Life felt normal...I don't really know what to do with my Sundays without football!! I arrived after the start of the game and am sorry to say I missed the fight on the pitch the other side of the fence - the posh expensive pitch we've never played on! Apparently neither team agreed with the ref, so all piled on top of him beating the watsit out of him!!! Our team was hilarious, most of the normal team couldn't make it and so it was like the B team playing, actually more like the Y team! They were so bad it was wonderful to watch, and the fact that the pitch was fooded from all the rain added to the fun (to watch), then the added bonus of 2 dogs who wouldn't go away. Normally the dogs and cows wander across in the middle of the game, but these 2 dogs were having way to much fun running round in the middle of it all. All in all, a most amusing game. I love Sundays!

A highlight of the day was one of the parents from school calling me - the fact they have my number is NOT a highlight, but the fact we chatted away before she realised I wasn't Profe Luz - the Honduran teacher! Shows my Spanish is improving!! I've been told many times this weekend that I am now truly bilingual with my Spanish, and my accent is Honduran (will be more so after more time away from England). I've heard my friends say so many things about other foreigners' Spanish and accents that to hear them being positive about mine means a lot. Don't get me wrong - it's still not great and I have a very long way to go yet, but it's an encouragement to hear people being positive about it! There is hope! If only my high school German and French teachers could see me now!!